1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a ball collecting device, in particular to a ball collecting device having a hollow drum and circular elastic elements for forcing a ball to shift the circular elastic elements and then squeezing the ball into the drum, so as to achieve the effect of collecting and storing the ball.
2. Description of the Related Art
At present, our living standard rises and we pay more attention to our physical health conditions, such that leisure activities and sports have caught our attention, and various ball games such as golf, baseball, table tennis and tennis have become popular games. In the aforementioned ball games, a large number of balls are used for practicing and drilling basic movements. Thus, many balls will be scattered to every corners of a training court, and a person who picks the balls has to bend down to pick up the balls and put the balls into a basket or a bucket repeatedly. However, this way of collecting balls usually takes much time and consumes much physical strength, and the way of picking up the balls repeated by hands not just makes the picker's hand dirty, but also causes pains or injuries to the picker's lower back.
A structure of a roller type ball collector has been disclosed in TW Pat. No. M284412, and the structure comprises a movable stand and a hollow basket with a plurality of elastic wires installed with an interval apart from one another and around the basket. An openable upper casing and a lower casing are installed at both ends of the basket respectively to form a containing space in the basket, such that the flexibility of the plurality of elastic wires is used for driving at least one ball to enter into the containing space and the ball will not fall out. In addition, a pivoting hole is formed respectively at the center of the upper casing and the lower casing for pivotally connecting an end extended from the movable stand, and a handle is installed at another end, so as to form the structure having the ball collection function. Further, the lower casing comprises a group of connecting holes provided for inserting a pin extended from the movable stand, and the handle is used as a base for erecting the ball collector to form a ball storage rack, so that a player can take out a ball easily from the ball storage rack for practices.
In addition, a ball collecting apparatus as disclosed in TW. Pat. No. 497434 comprises a pipe, a contractible spring, an arch rack, a push rod, a ball collection, cylinder, a semicircular frame and a contractible band. An upper section of the pipe is pivotally connected to a bottom end of a lower section of the arch rack, and the upper section of the pipe is linked with the middle of the lower section of the arch rack by the contractible spring, such that the arch rack can be turned downwardly and then resumed to its original position. An opening is formed at the middle of the pipe, and a clamping cylinder is formed and cut from both sides of the lower section for sheathing and clamping the ball collection cylinder. A rear semicircular bottom of the ball collection cylinder is pivotally coupled to the semicircular frame, and the plurality of contractible bands are tied with an appropriate interval apart from one another and on both sides of the center of the semicircular frame respectively. Other ends of the contractible bands are symmetrically tied to strip holes with an appropriate distance apart from each other at a front semicircular front of the ball collection cylinder. An upper end of the push rod is fixed by a sheathe that is positioned by the arch rack, and the bottom end of the push rod is passed through the opening of the pipe, extended out from the clamping cylinder and fixed to the center of the semicircular frame. The ball collection cylinder is pressed and covered onto table-tennis balls scattered over the ground of a court. The appropriate interval between two contractible bands and the flexibility of the contractible bands can be used for spreading the contractible bands apart according to the arc of the table-tennis balls and allowing the table-tennis balls to slide into the ball collection cylinder, and then the two contractible bands will resume their original positions to prevent the table-tennis balls from falling out. When the arch rack is turned downwardly, the push rod of an appropriate hardness pushes the semicircular frame down to open the ball collection cylinder and allows the table-tennis ball to fall out automatically, so as to provide a quick and convenient way of collecting and releasing the table-tennis balls.
In view of the drawbacks of the prior art, the inventor of the present invention based on years of experience in the related industry to conduct extensive researches and experiments, and finally developed a ball collecting device in accordance with the present invention to overcome the aforementioned issues of the prior art.